


Mystery Dance

by Balder12



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural: The Other Side (Fan Film)
Genre: Gender Issues, Genderswap, M/M, Sexual Dysfunction, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 07:49:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balder12/pseuds/Balder12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam struggle with the way their new female bodies change their relationship with the world and each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mystery Dance

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Other Side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/838289) by [astolat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/pseuds/astolat), [counteragentfilms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/counteragentfilms/pseuds/counteragentfilms). 



> This story picks up where [The Other Side](http://archiveofourown.org/works/838289) leaves off, but you don't necessarily need to have watched that to read this. Here's the road so far: In late season three Sam and Dean are turned into women by a dragon's curse. At the end of the story they're given the opportunity to change back to their true forms, but the dragon tells them that as long as Dean has a woman's body the hell hounds can't track him, and so he's free of the contract on his soul. Dean stays a woman to avoid Hell. Sam stays a woman out of solidarity.
> 
> The title is from the Elvis Costello song of the same name.
> 
> Caveats/Warnings/Etc.: This fic deals with gender identity and sexuality issues that may hit close to home for some people. I'm not an expert on--well, anything, really--but I hope it's respectful. Feel free to message me at [my LJ account](http://balder12.livejournal.com/) if the story raises issues, good or bad, that you don't want to discuss in public. I've listed this as M/M because both characters identify as male, but they're in female bodies throughout. 
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful beta, [firesign10](http://firesign10.livejournal.com/).

I. 

At first it’s kind of funny being in a woman’s body, a dirty joke in the flesh.  Dean can’t stop playing with his breasts, even when copping a feel off himself draws entirely the wrong kind of attention.  It’s like he’s starring in a 24/7 porno. 

A few days after the change, Sam walks in on him touching himself in front of a full length mirror and laughs. “You know that’s _literally_ the definition of narcissism, right?”  It doesn’t stop Sam from sticking around to watch.

They spend Sam’s twenty-fifth birthday huddled inside an abandoned building, surrounded by goofer dust and devil’s traps.  Just because some shady-ass virgin-eater says the hellhounds can’t find you doesn’t make it true.  They play cards, pace, and pretend to each other they’re not scared.  When the clock strikes midnight Dean is very drunk and Sam is very sober.  Nothing happens.  They stay hunkered down until daybreak, just in case, and then wander out into the dawn in silence.  They’re both too exhausted to celebrate.   

Dean’s new body has served its purpose, but when he wakes up on May 3 he’s still a woman. That’s when it finally sinks in:  this is forever.  It’s not a joke or a lark or one more crazy adventure he’ll be telling in a hunter bar in five years.  Dean will never be a man again, never be John Winchester’s son. 

He goes a little crazy for a while.  He picks fights in shitty dive bars because some guy looked at him wrong.  Or he tells himself that some guy looked at him wrong.   Any excuse will do.  The guys won’t hit back half the time, and that pisses Dean off even more.  He keeps swinging until they don’t have a choice. 

Not everyone Dean punches in the face suffers from misplaced chivalry, though, and Dean’s off his game.  He’s eight inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter, locked up inside the muscles of a stranger.  He makes an ass-first exit from every bar between New York and Atlanta. Night after night Sam stitches him up and cusses him out.  It’s a bona fide miracle Dean never lands in the hospital.

They’re in Sioux Falls when Sam says they need to take time off to retrain.  Dean throws a hissy fit so epic that Bobby offers to buy him a Hello Kitty backpack, “seeing as how that dragon went and turned you into a thirteen year old girl.”  In the end Dean has to admit Sam is right.  As Dean’s string of losing bar fights helpfully illustrates, if they went charging into a vamps’ nest in their new bodies they’d both be eaten.  So they start over.  The recoil on a .45 is a bitch, and Sam laughs the first time Dean tries to swing a machete, but eventually they learn to compensate for their lost size and strength. 

Sam is exhaustingly, infuriatingly rational through the whole ordeal.  While Dean is punching people, smashing mirrors, and throwing bras at Sam’s head, Sam approaches the problem methodically.  It’s a Rubik’s cube, and Sam’s going to make it line up, one little colored square at a time.

Sam figures out their new measurements and buys their wardrobe.  Finding shoes for Dean is damn near impossible.  He’s down to a boy’s size and nothing practical fits him.  Sam smirkingly suggests Velcro sneakers and almost gets punched.  It’s easy for Sam to laugh.  He’s still taller than Dean, and he can usually dig up something from the men’s rack at the Salvation Army that doesn’t make him look like a kid in daddy’s clothes.    

When the time comes to pass themselves off as FBI agents Sam finds the skirt suits, heels, and panty hose, and hunts through Youtube for videos on how to style hair and apply makeup.  The first couple of times they go back on a case Sam has to do everything short of wrestle Dean to the bed and threaten to blind him with an eyebrow pencil, but eventually he half-convinces Dean that cross-dressing isn’t that different from dressing up as priests, cops, or exterminators.  It’s just part of the job. 

And Dean feels better once they’re hunting again, even if it involves wearing pumps.  As long as he’s working a case he knows who he is.  He feels useful again.  The person in the mirror is still a stranger, but she’s not an enemy.  She kept him out of Hell, after all.  Once he calms down he starts to appreciate that.  He’s alive, Sam’s alive, Azazel’s dead.  They’re okay for once in their luckless lives.  It’s worth his dick to be able to say that.  

Except they’re the Winchesters, so of course they’re never _really_ okay.  It’s so obvious that for a long time it’s nearly invisible.  Sam is fine.  So totally and immediately fine that Dean’s tempted to take it as proof that Sam really is the massive girl Dean’s always accused him of being.    Sam only has one problem, and at first it looks so temporary, so obviously fixable, that it barely qualifies as a problem at all. 

The first time Sam goes down on Dean in his new body Dean comes three times and knocks the lamp off the bedside table.  Sam gives him the same smug smile he uses when he wins an argument, and Dean wants to wipe it off his face. 

Dean’s good at going down on women.  Fucking brilliant.  If there were a Yelp for cunnilingus he’d have five stars.  But Sam’s not impressed.  After ten minutes of squirming in what seems more like discomfort than pleasure, Sam pulls him up for a kiss and says, “Hey, ten out of ten for technique, but I don’t think tonight’s my night.” 

Dean’s disappointed, but not entirely surprised.  Sam loves sex, but he’s kind of got a stick up his ass about it too.  It’s serious business, damn it, and he doesn’t appreciate, say, Dean’s goofy, porno-inspired dirty talk when he’s doing something as important as sucking Dean’s cock.  He may very well be the only person in the world who can pull off an eye roll with a dick in his mouth.  Or he’ll suddenly decide to go all blushing virgin on Dean because they’re in the back seat of the Impala and “someone could see us!”  So two new bodies in one bed is a lot for him to handle.  Dean figures he’ll get over it eventually, with the passage of time and the proper application of Dean’s mojo.

But he doesn’t.  They try everything.  Dean goes down on him, rims him, fingers him, plays with his clit, looks in vain for his G-spot (Dean’s is right where it should be, and it’s fan-fucking-tastic), scissors with him in a dozen positions, tests out an entire sex shop’s worth of stolen vibrators (“tell me they didn’t fall off the back of a truck, Dean”), and sticks dildos in every available orifice.  He tries fucking Sam with a strap-on, which Sam hates so much he shoves him off halfway through, and Sam tries fucking him with a strap-on, which they both kind of like.  None of it gets Sam off. 

Dean understands up to a point.  Sex doesn’t feel the same as it used to, and it’s weird to have new nerves going off in strange places.  But Dean kind of likes the novelty.  It’s an adventure.  He misses Sam’s old body—the way he smelled and tasted, the texture of his skin, the sound of his voice.  And yeah, his cock.  But the new Sam is hot too, and hell, Dean’s not going to argue with tits.  But Sam just can’t seem to get past it, and after a few months Dean sees dread settle in behind his eyes every time they touch.  It just makes Dean push harder, even though after a certain point he’s sure he’s not helping.  Snapping “relax” at Sam during sex isn’t going to make him relax. 

It crosses Dean’s mind that maybe Sam’s not as bisexual as he claims, but that just doesn’t fit.  Dean knows the subtleties of Sam’s sexual excitement, even in this new body:  the pink flush from his throat to the tips of his ears, the way his mouth turns hot and slick as they kiss, the warm prickle of sweat that breaks out across his skin, making his cheek damp where it rests against the inside of Dean’s thigh.  Dean doubts Sam could fake those responses even if he wanted to.  Sam still _wants_ Dean, he just can’t _do_ anything about it.

Sam claims he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with him any more than Dean does.  He applies the same methodical approach he uses on every other problem posed by their gender switch, but no matter how hard he tries the little colored squares just won’t line up.  

It all comes to a head one night when Dean’s eating Sam out.  Sam doesn’t even have the basic decency anymore to pretend he’s into it.  He just lies there staring at the ceiling.  If he were wearing a watch he’d be checking it.  And then he sighs, like a guy in a waiting room who forgot to bring a magazine, and Dean’s done.  He gives up and flops down on the bed next to Sam.

“No, huh?”  He doesn’t try to hide his irritation.

Sam huffs.  “I said I didn’t want you to.  Seriously, Dean, how many times do I have to tell you I don’t like it?  But you fucking insist.”  Sam’s pissed.  The Rubik’s cube has proved to be a real bitch to solve.  “Why can’t I ever go down on you with having you immediately try to go down on me?”

“Said no woman ever.”  

“I’m not a woman!”  Sam rolls off the bed and pulls on his sweatpants.  He takes a deep breath and puts his reasonable face back on, but his voice is strained.  “Look, it’s not your fault, okay?  I know you’ve been trying as hard as you can.  And I’ve tried too.  I’ve rubbed my clit raw trying, and still nothing.  I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.  Maybe this body is just a dud firecracker.”  He grabs his shirt off the floor and his hair falls forward over his face, a protective veil.  “We need to deal with the fact that maybe this part of my life is over.”

“Sam—”

“It is what it is.”  Sam swallows hard.  “It’s not that big a deal.”  He disappears into the bathroom, the door shutting behind him with a careful click.

Sam is twenty-five years old, and the sexual part of his life may be over.  It’s a huge fucking deal. 

II. 

Sam’s beautiful.  There’s enough of the old Sam in his new face that Dean recognizes him in the strong nose, the slight tilt of the eyes, and the shaggy brown hair he chopped a foot off of the first chance he got and still needs to cut.  But as a woman he’s got a rounder line to his jaw and a fuller mouth.  Softer. 

His body is utterly transformed.  He’s lost nine inches and most of his muscle mass.  Even when he hardens again from training he’s willowy, long lean muscles on a slender frame.  His breasts are small enough that under a baggy flannel shirt they almost disappear.  When he’s not cross-dressing for a case he looks like a teenage boy.  Dean never laid a hand on Sam before Stanford—he’s not that kind of asshole—but he secretly enjoys the way that Sam’s transformation has turned back the clock.  He’d been a little thrown by how fast Sam filled out over the previous year,  going from lanky limbs and puppy fat to a solid wall of muscle that didn’t quite line up with the ‘Sammy’ in Dean’s head.  Sam in a woman’s body is both intriguingly new and reassuringly familiar.

But Dean can’t do more than look anymore.  Sam wasn’t kidding when he announced he was done with sex.  The next time Dean kisses him, Sam cringes and pulls away.  “I can’t do this right now.” 

Dean sighs.  “Can’t you just try to--”

“I _have_ tried, okay?  Practically every night for six months.  I hate it a little more every time.”  Sam hears what he just said and stops short, although it’s not like it’s news to Dean.  “I’m sorry, God, I’m sorry.”  Sam scrubs his face.  “It’s not your fault, okay?  I know I should be able to get over it, but I can’t.  It all feels wrong and weird and awful right now.  I’ve wrung myself dry.  I need time.”

Dean interprets ‘time’ as a week, so after that he tries again.  Sam rejects him. Dean waits a couple of days and then takes another run at it with the same result.  And so that’s how it goes:  a couple of times a week Dean tries to start something and Sam tells him no.  Dean constantly presses the issue, getting handsy long past the point where Sam’s clearly not into it.  It’s not because he’s horny, although God knows he is.  What Sam’s denying him is far more primal than sex:  Sam has a problem, and it’s Dean’s job to fix it.  But Dean can’t fix it if Sam won’t let him try. 

At first Sam’s guilty and apologetic when he turns Dean down, but the more Dean pushes the more Sam’s veneer chips away, until he practically snarls _don’t touch me_ every time Dean so much as lays a hand on him.  

Sam looking up from a library book with a boyish smile, Sam throwing himself into battle with fierce determination, Sam draped over the motel bed in a t-shirt and boxers, the outline of his breasts visible, one long leg dangling over the side—Dean’s not allowed to touch any of them.  But he wants them all like hell.

III.

The world is different when Dean cross-dresses.  Guys flirt with him.  Waitresses smile at him.  Bartenders serve him faster.  An old lady at the grocery store says he should be in movies.  His charm works again.  It’s like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.  People treat him the way they used to when he was a handsome man instead of a confusingly butch girl.  In the warmth of their approval a hole in Dean’s chest quietly heals over.  It’s embarrassing that lipstick and skirts make him feel more like the old Dean Winchester than flannel and boots, but they kind of do.                                                                                                                 

At first the only women’s outfit Dean has is the suit Sam got him for playing an FBI agent.  He finds himself leaving it on long after he could have changed back into his street clothes, sometimes hanging out in it all day long.  When they go to the Salvation Army to replace the clothes they’ve trashed during their hunts, Dean grabs a few things off the women’s rack.  “The men’s sizes don’t fit me,” he tells Sam, and it’s true, but it’s not really the point. Some of the clothes are practical, for hunting, but some of them aren’t.  Skirts, tight jeans, and low cut blouses all find their way into Dean's basket.  Even a couple of pairs of women’s shoes—flats, of course.  Dean’s not sure what he’s doing, but whatever it is he’s not about to break an ankle over it.  Sam arches an eyebrow when they get to the checkout counter.  In another lifetime he might have made a snarky comment, but things are too delicate between them to allow for a joke that emotionally charged.  Whatever Sam’s opinions are, he keeps them to himself.

Dean wears his new clothes guiltily, constantly expecting Sam to call him out.  Sam doesn’t say a word, though, and Dean gradually gains confidence.  Eventually he even puts on a bit of lipstick and eyeliner the way Sam taught him.  Sam still doesn’t say anything, but he watches when people smile at Dean, when they compliment him and touch his hand.  He watches Dean light up under the flood of attention.  When the guy at Starbucks slips Dean his number and gives him his coffee for free, Dean sees the wheels turning behind Sam’s eyes.  Sam may not know what the fuck is going on with himself, but he remains the world’s foremost expert on Dean.

Dean knows Sam sees what he’s doing, and he waits for the inevitable lecture about how it’s sexist and manipulative.  He’s totally unprepared for what actually happens: Sam starts dressing like a woman too.  He follows the same pattern as Dean, wearing his skirt suit longer than strictly necessary, then casually grabbing women’s clothes off the rack at the thrift store.  Sam didn’t say anything when Dean did it, so Dean returns the favor.

The transition doesn’t go as smoothly for Sam as it did for Dean.  Dean’s body looks like a cartoon drawing of a woman:  doe eyes, cupid’s bow mouth, generous curves.  He couldn’t pass for a man if he wanted to—even buried under a dozen layers of flannel he looks like a girl.  Once he’s in women’s clothes his masculine mannerisms are just a cute affectation. 

Sam, on the other hand, is slender and androgynous.  When he’s wearing men’s clothes people call him “he” almost as often as “she.”  In the early months Dean envied that, but now he sees the flip side.  Sam’s attracted a lot of stares in the months since he turned into a woman, some openly hostile, some curious and confused.  He’s been asked ‘what are you?’ to his face at least a half dozen times.  The women’s clothes announce the answer to that question, an official declaration of what Sam’s supposed to be, but they don’t quite sell it.  He looks awkward and indefinably _wrong_.  People still don’t smile at him the way they used to.    

Sam doesn’t give up.  He approaches the problem like it’s high school calculus and he’s afraid he’ll fail the AP exam. Dean catches him watching Youtube videos of transwomen talking about how to pass: men rest their ankle on their knee, women cross their legs, men fold their arms more often, women tend to shift their weight to one foot.  Dean sees Sam put these techniques into practice, self-consciously rearranging his body in the diner seat, crossing his legs correctly, abruptly remembering to unfold his arms.  He seems cramped and uncomfortable to Dean’s eyes, but the fucked up thing is that it kind of works.  Sam looks more like a girl.  People smile at him again.  Even the puppy dog eyes get back their mojo.

But Sam can’t sustain it.  He pours all his energy into pretending to be a woman for a few days, and then he runs out of steam and goes back to dressing like a man.  Except that by then he’s so burned out that he’s angry at the whole world, ready to snap at everyone he meets.  Dean’s all too familiar with Sam’s rebellious side, but he’s only ever seen it turned against himself and Dad.  Sam usually stays affable and calm with strangers, even when he’s staring daggers at Dean.  Not anymore.  It’s like everyone Sam meets just told him he can’t go to Stanford.  People react to him worse than ever because now he’s not just a weird boy-girl, he’s a weird boy-girl who’s acting like a total dick.  After a few days of that Sam gets sad and withdrawn.  Then he starts wearing women’s clothes again.  Sam goes on like this for months, each new turn on the merry-go-round a bit more desperate than the one before. 

Sam’s in the ‘women’s clothes’ part of the cycle when they figure out that the chupacabra sightings in the Arizona desert that Dean was absolutely, 110% sure were legit were actually a coyote with mange.  Sam called it while they were still on the road in New Mexico, but Dean wouldn’t listen.  Sam gloats the whole way back from the wildlife refuge, demanding control of the radio as a prize.  He tries to put on NPR and Dean slaps his hand away from the dial.  Dean’s not subjecting the Impala to that crap. 

Sam’s still in a good mood when they get back to motel, laughing and teasing Dean in a way he hasn’t in ages.  The clothes he’s wearing, women’s jeans and green blouse, aren’t _too_ girly, and he looks good in them.  Dean can do without Sam’s out-of-character performance as a woman, but when he’s alone with Dean and acting like himself, Dean enjoys seeing him in women’s clothes occasionally.  Sam makes a cute girl. 

When Sam sits down on the bed to untie his shoes Dean slides up next to him and lays a hand on the small of his back.  For once Sam doesn’t flinch away.  He catches Dean’s eye and smiles.  Dean brushes his hair aside and kisses his neck.  Sam tips his head back, allowing better access.  Dean cautiously makes his way to Sam’s mouth, and Sam lets him.  He’s passive at first, but then he cradles Dean’s face in his hands and kisses back, hungry and demanding. It feels like the Sam Dean knows, and he starts to relax, to believe this is really going to happen.  He cups one of Sam’s breasts and gets wet just from the brush of Sam’s hard nipple against his palm.

And then Sam’s on his feet, flush and disheveled, looking like Dean slapped him in the face.  “Do you like me better when I dress like this?” he says.

Dean has no idea what he did wrong.  “Seriously?  I don’t give a crap what you’re wearing.  Except the less the better.”  He tries for a smirk, but it feels thin.

Sam starts to pace.  “I know you.  You’ve never picked up a woman who looks like me.” 

“I’m the one who’s been getting kicked out of bed, remember?  What do you want from me?”

Sam’s not listening.  “I wouldn’t fuck me,” he says bitterly.  “Look at me.”  He gestures at his body like it’s an object in a display case.  “I’m a freak.”

“You’re not a freak.”  Sam eyes him incredulously.  “Okay, maybe a little bit of a freak,” Dean says.  “So am I.  This whole situation’s freaky.  And fine, you want honesty?  You’re not really selling the Victoria’s Secret thing, if that’s what you’re going for.  But you’re still a hot guy.  And I like guys.  As you might’ve guessed from the thousands of times I let you stick your dick up my ass.”

Dean’s not sure how that’s going to go over.  There was a time not long ago when it was a huge deal for Dean to admit he liked cock, even when he was getting it on a nightly basis. He’s hoping that scores him at least a few points.

Sam keeps pacing.  He doesn’t look offended, but he doesn’t look pleased either.  It’s like he hasn’t heard a word Dean said.

“Azazel fed me his blood,” Sam says after a long silence.  He immediately blanches, like his secret was outed by someone else.

“ _What_?”  Dean wasn’t ready for the conversation to take a left turn that sharp. 

“When I was a baby.”  Sam stares out the window, avoiding Dean’s eyes.  “He told me when I was at the Battle Royale.  Showed me.  I saw Mom die.”

Dean’s not sure which part of that to yell about.  “You’ve known for a year?  And you’re just thinking to fill me in now?”

Sam wheels around.  “What was I supposed to do?  I was going to tell you, and then I found out you’d sold your soul for me.  We had to deal with that.  I couldn’t drop this crap on you too.”

“So . . . so what?  Azazel fed you his blood.  What does that even mean?”  Dean has the vague notion that Sam’s like Kurt Russell in _Escape From New York_ —any minute now he could blow up for failing to achieve his mission to go full Antichrist.

“I don’t know, Dean.  I swear to God.  He didn’t tell me what their end game was.”

Dean takes a deep breath and successfully represses his urge to punch Sam in the face.  Nothing good is going to come of that right now.  “So that’s why you had the visions,” he says.

“I assume.”

“But not since I ganked Azazel.”  Dean’s pretty sure that’s true—he’d have noticed Sam passing out and throwing up from headaches—but apparently the kid’s been keeping a lot of secrets.

“No.”  Sam’s recovered enough to stare Dean down with big, earnest eyes.  It works.  It always works.  Dean feels like a monster for questioning him.

“Maybe it’s over then.”  An idea strikes Dean and he’s immensely relieved.  “The body switch threw off the hell hounds, right?  You’re probably in the clear now too.  New body, 100% demon blood free.”

Sam doesn’t even pause to consider that suggestion.  He just shakes his head ruefully.  “No, nothing’s changed.  It’s still in me.”

“How can you know that?”

Sam swallows hard, throat bobbing in a sign of emotion he’s carried with him from muscular man to lithe girl.  “I just do.  I can feel it inside me, and nothing I do can tear it out, or wash it away, or . . . I don’t get off that easy.”

Sam wipes the remnants of lipstick from his mouth and stares down at the pink stain on the back of his hand in disgust.  “I used to be able to hide it.  Even from you.  I could pretend to be normal.  But now, everywhere I go, people see right through me.  They look at me like . . .” Sam shakes his head.  “And I know, okay, I _know_ they aren’t seeing the demon blood.  They aren’t seeing how fucked up I am on the inside.  But it feels that like they are.  It feels like everywhere I go everyone knows I’m a monster.”

“You’re not a monster,” Dean says.  It’s a reflex, not an opinion.  He doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to feel about his brother being part demon, but he knows he needs to fix this.

Sam walks out the door without looking back.  He stumbles and clutches at the doorframe on his way out.  He’s never gotten the hang of women’s shoes.  In a different world Dean would laugh, and Sam would laugh with him, and everything would be okay.  Instead Dean sits silently on the bed and stares at the hands of a woman with too many callouses and sensible nails. 

Sam’s gone a full day while Dean sits and drinks, worrying about demons and blood and women and bodies.  Sam comes back with dark circles under his eyes and a slump to his shoulders.  He’s wearing a man’s jeans and a flannel shirt.  They aren’t clothes Dean’s seen before, but he’s not in the mood to ask questions.  They ride out of town in bitter silence, too familiar with their own sins to make recriminations:  a man who sold his soul to a demon and a man who was nursed by one.

IV.

Sam’s gentler with Dean after his revelation, like he thinks he has something to make up for.  Quiet, reasonable, respectful.  Blank as a door closed in Dean’s face.  And still angry. 

Sam and Dean aren’t twins, but they might as well be.  Dean feels Sam’s pain, no matter how well Sam thinks it’s hidden.  Dean feels the coil in Sam’s gut twist tighter every time he puts on women’s clothes, every time people stare at him in the grocery store trying to decide if he’s a boy or a girl.  Dean feels it twist when he undresses in front of Sam at night.  Sam _want_ s and Dean feels the echo in his stomach, a phantom knife, every time he unhooks his bra.  _Come get me, come take what you want,_ is always on the tip of his tongue.  But he never says it, and Sam never moves, never grabs and claims.

Dean keeps pushing for sex.  He doesn’t even hope for a yes anymore, but if he gives up now he might as well hang a neon sign over his bed that flashes “you’re a monster.”  Dean can’t even remember the last time he asked for sex just because he wanted it.  It’s all this horrible dance of need and rejection.  Referred pain from a wound he can’t find to patch up. 

The tension comes to a head when they’re sparring.  Sam’s been working harder than Dean for months: running, chin-ups, weights.  He’ll never be the brick wall he was, but he’s made himself lean and muscular in a way that Dean with his late mornings and bacon double cheeseburgers can’t quite match. 

Dean’s still the older brother, though, and what he lacks in physical strength he makes up for in cunning and endurance.  Sam comes at Dean like a freight train, but he forgets to keep a defensive posture.  Dean kicks the legs out from under him and Sam hits the ground hard.  Before he’s had a chance to recover he comes at Dean again, faster and stupider than before.  Dean drops him a second time. 

Sam’s pissed now.  Dean can see it in his eyes.  He lunges at Dean a third time and Dean throws him even easier because Sam’s running on pure adrenaline.  Sam glares up at Dean snarling, his bottom lip split, his teeth bloody.  When he comes again he springs like a cat tackling a bird, all four limbs off the ground, and brings Dean down through sheer force of will.  They roll over and over, grappling, shoving, clutching at each other’s throats.  Either one of them could break the other’s jaw with one good blow, but they don’t fight like that.  They never have.

Sam’s still stronger, the bastard.  In half a minute Dean’s pinned under him.  Dean doesn’t know if he’s about to get a fucking or beating, but at this point either one is better than indifference.  When Sam’s mouth meets his it’s less a kiss than a new attack. Sam bites down hard on Dean’s bottom lip and their blood mixes.  Sam grabs Dean’s hair and forces his head back.  He nips at Dean’s throat, leaving a string of bloody scrapes and new red bruises between his jaw and collar bone.

This ferocious sexual sledgehammer isn’t Dean’s favorite version of Sam, but  at this point he’ll take whatever he can get.  He wraps his legs around Sam’s waist and claws at his back.  Sam snatches Dean’s wrists away and pins them above his head with one hand.  Dean’s pretty sure he could break away with a solid push.  He stays still. Sam glares down at him, his chest heaving.

“Come on,” Dean says.  “Come on, you fucker.”

But Sam doesn’t move.  There’s an impossibly long moment where his gaze rests on Dean with fierce intensity.  Then his face crumples.  

Dean cries more often than Sam.  No torture device ever discovered by man would get him to admit it, but he can count, so he knows damn well it’s true.  But Sam cries harder.  There’s no manly single tear, no silent dignity.  Hugging his knees in the middle of a vacant lot full of broken beer bottles and used condoms, Sam bawls.  His mouth is still smeared with blood, and it reminds Dean horribly of chocolate, of a devastated five-year-old who dropped his ice cream cone in the parking lot. 

Part of Dean is pissed.  He wants to grab Sam and shake him, tell him he’s a fucking idiot.  He didn’t have to do this.  He could’ve gotten his body back, he had the amulet in his hand.  Dean would give anything short of his worthless, troublemaking soul to go back in time and tell Sam to cut the martyr crap and take his goddamned dick when it’s offered to him on a silver platter.

 The worst of it is that if Sam had had the decency to be selfish that day they’d be okay now.  Dean’s not thrilled about being trapped in a woman’s body, but he’s dealing.  If Sam had stayed a man they would’ve worked it out.  Hell, they’d probably be committing public indecency right now.  But no.  God forbid Dean make a sacrifice that Sam doesn’t match.  Even when it’s completely pointless.

Dean swallows the words that rise up in his throat.  Looking at Sam curled up on the ground it’s obvious he already knows he’s made a mistake.  And really, he was just following the unspoken third clause of the Winchester family motto:  saving people, hunting things, making massive sacrifices for each other we’ll probably live to regret.  

Dean tentatively hooks his arm around Sam’s shoulders.  “Come on, Sam.  Let’s go inside.”  Sam shakes his head and makes a wet choking sound as he struggles for breath.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, wrestling to get his voice under control.   “I’m so sorry.”

Dean’s not sure whether Sam’s apologizing for the crying fit, the nonconsensual gender reassignment, or the fact that they haven’t had sex in months.  It doesn’t matter.  The answer’s the same regardless:  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.  Except making me roll around in this goddamn tetanus farm.  We probably both need shots.”  

Dean grabs Sam under his arm and tries to pull him to his feet.  This time Sam yields, his face buried in the shoulder of Dean’s jacket.  They stumble back to motel room wrapped up in each other. 

V. 

Sam is unnervingly quiet afterward.  His moods swings simmer down until there’s nothing left but a tranquil surface.  He just sort of _is_.  His collection of women’s clothes disappears between one motel and the next.  Only the suit he needs to pass as an FBI agent remains.  He walks around in his regular clothes, all effort at female body language abandoned, taking people’s odd looks and confused pronouns without comment.  Dean’s not sure what to make of that, whether it’s a sign of acceptance or despair. 

Dean gives up on sex.  At this point taunting Sam with it just feels cruel.  Sam isn’t immediately on board for the new, enlightened Dean.  For weeks he flinches every time Dean lays a hand on his shoulder, ready for a fight as soon as it strays.  Eventually he accepts that Dean isn’t demanding anything, though, and starts to allow friendly contact again.  The first time Sam falls asleep on the motel bed in the middle of some dreary PBS documentary about Gambia, his arm wound around Dean’s waist, his head pillowed on Dean’s breasts, Dean clutches him like a child clutching his favorite blanket.  He didn’t know how much he’d missed holding Sam until he was running his fingers through that stupid, floppy hair.  If the end game here is that they never have sex again—and Dean’s starting to suspect it is—then he’ll find a way to deal with it.  But he can’t live without this:  the familiar weight of Sam’s body next to his, the reassuring rhythm of his breath.

It’s about a month later when Sam produces a tank top style binder from nowhere one morning, and pointedly puts it on in front of Dean.  “I think it’ll help,” he says.  He doesn’t say _what_ it’ll help.  Dean just nods and watches.  Sam doesn’t have a big chest, and the binder flattens it convincingly.  Sam walks differently when he wears it, shoulders back and head up, more like the old Sam than he’s been since he got dropped into his new body.  Dean thinks maybe it’s that as much as the binder that makes waitresses call Sam “sir.”  Either way, it works.  Sam doesn’t talk about it, but he glows with relief. 

After a few successful weeks with the binder Sam brings Dean a pair of scissors.  “I’d do it myself, but you’ve been waiting for this your whole life.  Feels wrong to deny you.”  He gives a shy grin.

Dean isn’t as happy about cutting Sam’s hair as he’d always imagined he would be.  It feels sad and shitty in the same way it felt sad and shitty when Sam was wearing skirts and trying to carry himself like a woman.  People are assholes and Sam shouldn’t have to give up one of the few things he likes about himself to shut them up.  Besides, Dean’s skeptical that a haircut is going to fix Sam’s problems.  Sam can make himself the most convincing man in the world, but he’ll still have demon blood, and he’ll still feel like everyone can see it. 

“You know,” Dean says tentatively, “your hair is cool the way it is.”

“Never thought I’d live to hear you say that.”  Sam looks Dean over and sighs.  “You’re cool the way you are too, you know.  But life’s a hell of a lot easier when you’re wearing lipstick, isn’t it?”

Dean shrugs because yeah, it is.  He’s cross-dressing pretty much full time now.  And maybe that’s sad and shitty too, but if he can’t be handsome he needs to be pretty.  It’s not about getting laid—even with an indefinite period of celibacy dropped on him by Sam’s issues, Dean’s not in the market—it’s both more complicated and simple.  He needs people to like him.  He’s done worse to get it.

“Right on, Cousin It,” Dean says.  He does his best to act game, but he can’t bring himself to cut Sam’s hair as short as Sam says he wants it.  Once it’s covering the tips of Sam’s ears he pulls back and says, “I think you’re good.  There’s an entire tribble’s worth of hair on the floor already.”

Sam studies his reflection skeptically.  He seems like he’s on the brink of complaining, but then he catches Dean’s eye in the mirror and smiles.  “I guess it’s only fair I leave you something to hold on to,” he says.  It’s the first hint he’s given in months that they might actually have sex again someday.  Dean smiles back, blushing like a school girl. 

VI.

It’s five months since Sam started trying to pass as a man, and he’s woken up in full dick mode.  He snaps at Dean when he’s shaken awake, and then stumbles into the bathroom to grab the first shower before he’s even given Dean a chance to piss. 

Dean brings back bagels and coffee from the lobby while Sam’s in the bathroom, and is rewarded with a grunt that doesn’t sound remotely like ‘thank you.’  Sam snatches breakfast away from Dean and slumps sullenly over his laptop.

Dean couldn’t be happier.  This particular bit of assholery is standard issue Sam, part of the occasionally douchey rainbow of Sam’s moods.  It’s indisputable, obnoxious evidence that Sam’s feeling better.

“Come on,” Dean says.  “We need to do some laundry before we hit the road.”  Sam gives an uncooperative shrug and keeps his eyes on the computer screen, so Dean loads the car on his own, muttering about useless brothers and making vague threats toward iTunes.

Once the dirty clothes are all securely tossed into the back seat Dean goes by the front desk to check out.  “Mr. Wesson already gave us the keys,” the man says. 

Dean looks over his shoulder and finds Sam lurking behind him, dressed in his Hoodie of Sadness.  The damn thing was always ridiculous, and it’s even more ridiculous now that it’s five sizes too big. But Sam brought it from Stanford, and evidently neither fire nor death nor sex change will part him from it.     

The man hands Dean the receipt.  “Thank you for staying with us, Miss Smith.”

“That’s _Ms._ Smith,” Dean says with a flourish as he walks away.  If he has to spend the rest of his life pretending to be a woman, he’s at least occasionally claiming the privilege of acting like a bitch.

Sam laughs as Dean walks past, and Dean gives him the one finger salute.  “Come on, ‘Mr. Wesson.’”  Dean’s still a touch envious of the “Mr.,” of how easily and reliably people use it with Sam these days.  But Dean can’t pull it off convincingly, at least not without hormones and surgery, things he’s got no access to.  And really, most of the time he’s okay with drag.  If there’s one thing Dean’s good at, it’s pretending to be what he’s not.

A wave of humidity hits Dean in the face as he walks into the laundromat.  Fucking insufferable, is what it is.  No one ever spends the money to air condition these places.  Dean struggles to get the laundry bag through the door.  It’s not too heavy, it’s just awkward—a giant, unmanageable sack of stinking, blood-stained clothes. 

Sam grabs it away from him unceremoniously and swings it up onto the top of one of the washing machines, like he’s a boyfriend carrying his girl’s bags.  It could almost be unintentional, except Dean catches the flicker of a smile, half-hidden in the shadow of Sam’s hoodie.  Sam’s really bound and determined to annoy Dean today.

Dean picks up the bag and moves it to another, identical washing machine.  “I’m not a girl,” he says, and sits on top of a dryer.            

Sam sits down next to him.  “You teared up over an episode of _Dr. Sexy_ last night.”

“She left him at the altar, Sam,” Dean says.  “And I’m serious,” he adds, because he knows Sam’s giving him shit, but if there’s even the germ of any sort of wrong idea sprouting here he’s going to nip it in the bud.  “I’m not a girl.  I’m not _the_ girl.  So if you think . . .”

Sam bumps shoulders with him affectionately.  “I know.  You’re a man.  You’re the manliest man who ever manned.  You realize we already had this conversation like fifty times back when we still had dicks, right?”

And maybe they had.  It’d seemed terribly important back then that Dean was having sex with a guy.  More important, honestly, than that the guy was his brother.  Dean doesn't like to dwell on exactly how fucked up that makes him.  They’re in territory so much weirder now that it’s laughable he was ever worried that people would think he was gay.  Dean’s not even sure anymore which parts of his life he’s supposed to freak out over. 

“Then don’t forget it,” Dean says.  “I can totally own you, even in heels.”

Sam’s face has settled comfortably into the crook of Dean’s neck.  “Can you?” he murmurs, and his lips brush Dean’s throat.

“Uh huh,” Dean says. Sam’s hand slides under his shirt and his head thunks against the ancient cork bulletin board behind him.   

Sam’s hand skates along the sticky skin of Dean’s stomach, sliding up to cup his breast through his bra, and then tracing a finger under the edge, soothing the dent left by the material. 

A laundromat in the middle of the day isn’t Sam’s favorite place for a quickie, even at the best of times, and Dean’s terrified that one false move will get the whole thing called off.  He tips his head cautiously until his lips meet Sam’s.  There’s an instant where they’re scarcely kissing at all, and then Sam takes control, tongue pushing into Dean’s mouth, his leg thrown across Dean’s lap, suddenly half on top of him.  Sam’s hand wanders down to the button of Dean’s jeans.  He pulls back and looks Dean in the eye.

“I need you not to try to touch me, okay?” he says, and catches his bottom lip between his teeth.  He’s flushed and scared.  “Just let me do this.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says.  “Anything you want.”

Sam’s hand slides lower, and maybe it’s a measure of how long it’s been since they’ve had sex, but Dean expects to feel Sam’s fingers close around his cock.  He’s briefly disappointed when he remembers it’s gone, that Sam will never touch him in quite that way again.  But fuck it, this is good too.

Sam finds Dean’s clit and takes up the same rhythm that he used to use when he gave Dean a hand job.  It still works.  Dean leans into Sam and touches where he’s allowed, cradling Sam’s face and clutching at his too-short hair.  Coming is different in a woman’s body, not an irresistible spilling over, but a long climb to the top.  Dean writhes against Sam’s hand, struggling and panting, too breathless to moan.  When it hits him he gives an embarrassing yelp and his heels clang against the washing machine as he thrashes.

Sam rests his cheek against Dean’s, and then shifts to kiss Dean’s temple and the edge of his hair, licking the sweat gathered there with a delicate flick of his tongue.  His lips form the word “good” against Dean’s skin, “good, good, good.”  When he finally pulls back he smiles, red lipped and disheveled, hair sticking out in every direction.  He pulls his fingers free of Dean’s jeans and pops them into his mouth.  Dean groans and settles back against Sam’s arm.  He checks the front window of the laundromat and make sure they haven’t attracted an audience.

“What was that for?” Dean says.

Sam squeezes him.  “You’re fun to touch.” 

 Dean holds Sam’s gaze.  “So are you.”  Sam looks away, suddenly sad.  Dean wishes he were mute.

“We’ll try again,” Sam says.  “I promise.  But I need a little more time.”

“That’s cool.  Really.”  It’s a better answer than he expected.

“Just, don’t get your hopes up, okay? There’s no reason to think it’ll be different.”

Dean gestures dismissively with the hand that’s not resting on Sam’s hip.  “Like I said, it’s cool.”

But Sam doesn’t look entirely reassured.  “You say that, but I may never be the way I was.  I know the last year has been hard and I’d understand if you didn’t want . . .” Sam seems to realize there’s no way to end that sentence that isn’t “me” and gets stuck.  “. . . whatever.” 

“I do want, okay?” Dean says.  “The way you were, the way you are.  Chick Sam, guy Sam, Hoodie of Sadness Sam—“ Sam snorts—“sexy library Sam, badass hunter Sam, angry bitey Sam, big damn martyr Sam.  All the Sams.”

Sam’s quiet for minute.  “ _Bitey_?” he says finally.   He’s smiling.

“Dude, you’re super bitey.  I have scars.”

Sam leans into Dean’s shoulder and nips his throat.  “See?” Dean says and pulls him closer.  They listen to the rattle of the washing machines while Sam nibbles on Dean’s neck for the first time in a year.  It’s progress.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Mystery Dance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019187) by [applegeuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/applegeuse/pseuds/applegeuse)




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